Sunday, July 03, 2016

Baturday.

You could of course call any Saturday during the Major League Baseball season Baturday(or perhaps it should be Batterday). But yesterday seemed to especially fit the term.

Directly relevant to Canadian baseball fans was yesterday's 9-6 Blue Jays victory over the Cleveland Indians. After Friday's 19 inning endurance match, which saw the Indians win in the 19th inning, a high scoring game was probably to be expected. It ended the Indians franchise record 14 game winning streak. On the other hand the Indians had something to cheer about in former Blue Jay Rajai Davis hitting for the cycle, the first time an Indians player has done so since 2003.

The biggest bash of the day was of course the Los Angeles Angels putting the beat on to the Boston Red Sox. I went out to get a snack just before the 7th inning, with the Angels already ahead 9-1. So I missed most of the top of the 7th, when the Angels scored 11 runs. Nasty. And the big heroes in the game were a couple of players you wouldn't have expected. Albert Pujols having 5 RBI? No surprise. But unless you're an Angels fan you probably aren't familiar with C.J. Cron and Carlos Perez. Yet Cron went 6 for 6, including 2 home runs, and earned 5 RBIs. Perez went 5 for 6 and generated 6 RBIs. Had Perez gone 6 for 6 it would have been the first time 2 players on the same team had gone 6 for 6 since the 1920s. Perez also managed to increase his batting average 20 points if I'm not mistaken. And to add insult to injury the Angels are not a good team this year, sitting 15 games below .500 even with yesterday's win. John Farrell called Boston's performance embarrassing.

The weak beating the strong was also a theme in other games. The lowly Minnesota Twins, at a dismal 26-54, beat the 52-30 Texas Rangers 17-5. The wimpy Atlanta Braves beat the Miami Marlins 9-1. Atlanta's currently 28-53, while the Marlins are 5 games over .500. And the Cincinnati Reds beat the National League East leading Washington Nationals 9-4, the Reds being another team who are a long way from .500.

Not all the games were big hitting affairs. The closest was the San Diego Padres(another team with a seriously losing record) beating the Yankees 2-1 with a walk off home run by Melvin Upton Jr. But you still have to wonder what was in the Gatorade around the league yesterday.

Interestingly Toronto was the only American League East team to win yesterday. So thank you to the Angels and the rest for helping them out.